Happy Solstice! I can’t believe how fast this year has gone. Like many of you, I plunged into existential despair after the election, wondering if we were on the brink of Armageddon. In my heart, I knew we’d signed up for this, and even now we continue to march into the unknown. Yet I think we can all agree that great light is shining through this year’s dark shadows. In my own work, I think a lot about the light and the shadow and how to find balance between these two poles. As much as I want to scream at those harboring bigotry, racism, misogyny, and hatred in their hearts for other beings (plants, animals, and Gaia herself, as well), I have to stop myself because if we’re working according to the energetic laws of the Universe, then we have to consider that separation begets more separation—which only creates more conflict. If I react to fear by screaming, I’m only going to create more fear. It’s time to find another way.

Now, to be sure, I want to see this house-of-cards patriarchy crash (and burn!) just as much as anyone else who is fighting for truth. But I also believe in the Law of Attraction, which states that like attracts like, and what we resist persists. I find myself wondering: Is there a way to stand for truth and to hold space for all that is?

In my practice, it’s my job to help people live in their hearts and not in fear. So I know that it is absolutely possible to live in this turbulent world with an open heart. But it does require practice—and some seriously strong boundaries. It requires a complete acceptance of the self and all our parts; it also requires an acceptance of others and all their parts. The gloves are off for everyone now. The personal is political and the battles we are fighting within ourselves become what manifests in our world. And all this is happening faster and faster.

Light and dark sides of the Moon

Image via Philipp Salzberger Photography

You heard me right: We have to dismantle this mess and we have to do it not with resistance but with an open heart. This is a very painful process for some of us. In this environment, victims often have to re-traumatize themselves to be heard. Some of us have to wonder if our own fathers, brothers, or partners are on some sexual harassment list. Some of us have been fighting our whole lives to be seen beyond the binary system, and now that it’s trendy we feel exploited and taken advantage of. White men have to hold the shame and fear they have been perpetrating for millennia in order to help us climb out of an egoic/toxic masculine paradigm, and ascend into a divine masculine consciousness. Can we forgive ourselves? Rage is important. Love is too. Remember, it’s not either/or, it’s both/and in a nondual, unified state.

The dual nature of the collective consciousness keeps us largely stuck in this scarcity/separation orientation. Just as we must hold space for all the pieces of the human experience in this life, we must allow space for the parts of us that might resonate at lower vibratory frequencies (fear, jealousy, shame, sadness, etc). A lot of fear usually lives in the mind, which is generally associated with the ego—but that’s not all bad. We need healthy egos to function in the world. The heart is the seat of true wisdom. When we use our higher minds and our hearts together to make choices, this is called discernment. When we live with discernment we get to consciously respond to life instead of unconsciously reacting to it. We also get to experience higher vibratory states like compassion, gratitude, joy, and love. It’s the way we get truly free.

Remember: In the beginning, there was unity consciousness. Everything was one. There was no separation between self and divine, between self and other. Then the patriarchy rose to power at the same time that a dual consciousness was forming (self becomes separate from divine, separate from other). What does this look like? Newtonian science adopted this subject-object awareness, and in fact, all of our systems are based around the precept that we are separate. For example: Capitalism is based on scarcity. On the law that there is not enough. Inevitably, that leads us to believe that we are not enough.

Evolving out of fear-based egoic consciousness and into love-based soul awareness is the activation of unity consciousness. Separation is an illusion. There is no separation from self, from other, from the divine. It is all one. We are all one. Separation equals fear. Unity equals love. I feel like one of the reasons so many people feel tremendous loneliness and powerlessness right now is because we are steeped in this illusory separation. (Side note: Technology is not doing us any favors here, either.)

Art installation around wall in Tecate, Baja CA

Image via @jr

I know a lot of people are talking about how this is a time to take action. How if you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem. I totally agree. I also think we need to be careful not to negate the power of internal transformation at this time. In addition to what’s going on in the news and in the streets, there is a whole level of non-physical reality that is affecting real-life outcomes. The more expanded and subtle our consciousness becomes, the more attuned to this we become. There is much power that’s available to us beyond the level of physical form. In these subtler realms, we can begin to shift things into greater integration. I believe that much ancient wisdom points to this reality. The well-known clairvoyant Edgar Cayce predicted that, in 2018, Armageddon would indeed occur, but that it would play out in the spirit world: a cosmic duel between light and dark forces.

The pendulum illustrates the physical law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. “You receive from the world what you give to the world.” – Gary Zukov

Imagine each of us as a prism, a hologram that reflects out into the world. Light comes in, rainbows beam out. Then imagine saying, “Oh, I only want good red, orange, and yellow within me. I don’t want green, indigo, and violet—those beams are bad.” The Universe doesn’t assign “good” or “bad”; humans created the duality and morality around energy. For every action there will be a reaction. If, for example, we push the patriarchy into a corner and keep calling it bad, we’re merely setting up a reactionary swing of the pendulum. If we’re trying to manifest “the future is female” only, then isn’t that just more imbalance? What if we made space for an integration? For the idea that the future is unity? What if we raised the vibration of our hearts so that the fear we feel could be consciously integrated, instead of pushing it into a corner where it inevitably grows more dangerous and volatile?

You need both light and dark to create a rainbow

Image via InsideHigherEd.org

I think about the feeling I had in my heart when Michelle Obama said “When they go low, we go high.” That’s a very different proposal than, “When they go right, we go left.” When Mrs. Obama issued that summons, I feel she was calling us to stop pushing the pendulum back and forth. She was calling for higher, more expanded consciousness. And a lot of the collective is going higher—I am very encouraged. But we have to keep choosing love instead of fear. The emphasis on fear, individual rights, separation, the other—this dual-natured patriarchal structure is crumbling. Love, community, and unity are the new order. There is no us and them anymore, that time is over. There is only the All One. Are you in?